


Five Times Howl and Calcifer Came to an Agreement (And One Time They Didn't)

by madamebadger



Category: Howl Series - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: 5 Things, 5 Times, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 04:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2799092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamebadger/pseuds/madamebadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about a magical contract is that the negotiation of it never really ends. Oh, it may seem that you've got everything sorted out at first... but life's a lot more complex than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Howl and Calcifer Came to an Agreement (And One Time They Didn't)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alasse_Irena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alasse_Irena/gifts).



**The Contract**

He falls.

It seems to take a long time, but maybe that's because before now--when he was a star and not a _falling_ star--he had very little sense of time. In the glittering endlessness of the celestial spheres he merely _was_ , and there was nothing but eternity all around, and nothing but the high sweet voices of every other star, singing one to the other as he sang as well. Eternity and forever in a million voices and a million lights.

So though he knew it would someday end for him--that stars were eternal, but each star was finite, was written in all the songs the stars sung--he never thought about it until it was time to fall, and now it's too late.

So he experiences fear for the first time, and time for the first time, and firstness for the first time, and he thinks as he falls that maybe they're all the same thing, maybe fear is time and time is knowledge of first and last and firstness and lastness are also fear.

And he hears his own voice for the first time, too: not that he hadn't heard it before that--like all stars he sang, ceaselessly--but for the first time he hears his voice as _his_ voice, not as part of the great tapestry of the sphere of heaven but as his own voice, and that is not fearful but wonderful. His voice! His own voice!

And then there are other things to wonder at, as he passes from the airless realms above the firmament to the crystal-clear and cold upper air and then lower, to air that has a weight--a velvety texture--and a taste. A _taste_ , and for a moment his open mouth ceases its long descending cry to sample the air, to taste its growing wetness and greenness, a taste of approaching dawn and of growing things and of clean still pools nearly as dark and glossy as the upper heaven from which he fell.

Only he knows, as all stars know, that while he could live in the seas of the sky, the waters of the land will quench him and he will die, finally.

And he thinks _After only so little of a taste?_ and in his fear there comes a sadness, too, and that is also a first.

With the all-bright eyes of a star he watched all below him, even through his terror, and so it is that he sees the shape--the man-shape--racing across the field, faster than fast, and he realizes with a sudden shock of horror that, as he is falling, his trajectory will make him hit the man. He is falling too fast now to change his course, and though he knows he must fall to die he does not want to kill another as he does. 

So he takes what remains of the eternal heat that is a star's heart and draws it into himself, wraps himself around it, and that takes all the last of his energy and so it is that he does not so much strike the man as he is caught by him, caught in his hands.

And the taste of the air is strongest here, green with growing things and heavy with water and he can taste, too, the blooming of night flowers and the richness of earth and above them all the warm smell of human skin. And though he knows he is dying, must die, for his star's life has run out and the heat of his heart of fire is dwindling, it seems to him that he can sustain himself for just a moment on the life-heat radiating from the man's skin. Because the man is full of life, so full it seems that his mortal body can't contain it.

And so he raises his eyes to the eyes of the man, green and clear as certain pools in strong sunlight, and the man says, "Falling star, I would like to make you a bargain."

* * *

**The Frying Pan**

"I won't," Calcifer says. He swells himself up in that way that he could never do as a star, but that he's come to find quite enjoyable as a demon, until the curly green flames at the top of his face nearly lick the ceiling. He's quite pleased by the effect, as his swelling flames suck oxygen from the room fast enough to drag a gust of air in through the cracks of the windows.

(He is aware that he has changed, changed very much from how he was as a star. He still has the fire of a star, but not the star's heart, and his heart now is Howl's. He has a name now, too, although he isn't sure if that is new or not. Did he have a name when he was a star? Or did it come to him when he became a demon? It seems to him that stars may be nameless but demons must have names, but there are no stars here, of course, to ask.)

Howl just stands there, arms folded, that look of mild amusement on his face.

"And you can't make me," Calcifer adds as an afterthought. (Yes, he has changed very much. He is very much enjoying being able to be _willful_. Stars follow their measured paths obediently--joyfully, but without deviation. He is very much enjoying the ability to deviate, and to digress.)

"Would you like to try me?" Howl asks mildly. 

Calcifer glares. He hasn't much experience of humans, but in what limited experience that he does have, his glare _always_ has an immediate effect on humans. Even the ones that can't really see him as anything but a fire.

Always except for Howl, apparently. Calcifer glares harder. Howl doesn't glare, he just looks back with that implacable look in his eyes, green as bottle-glass and just as reflective.

Calcifer sighs and lets himself deflate until he's at least not singeing the rafters anymore. "I wouldn't have made a contract with you if I knew you were going to be such a bully." (This is a lie; lies are another new thing he can do. He had not quite known, though, how _much_ the contract would bind him--would bind both of them.)

"Oh come now, Calcifer, I hate arguing," Howl says.

"Then you could just stop arguing," Calcifer grouses. There is a momentary staring contest. Calcifer ought to win this because his eyes aren't exactly even eyes, but somehow it comes out a draw. "All right. A deal. You may cook on me no more than three times a day. For no more than half an hour each time--if you want to simmer a stew, you'll have to get another fire demon. Or just an ordinary fire."

"Perish the thought."

Calcifer shrugs as best he can. "And if you let anything boil over onto me, deal's off."

"Fair enough," Howl says, taking down the frying pan. Calcifer grumbles some more, but lets himself shrink down until he's nothing but a ring of green flames around the trivet.

"I hope you're happy," he says, somewhat muffled.

"Oh, delighted," Howl says.

* * *

**The Castle**

Calcifer has had some time to get used to the warning signs that Howl is becoming bored. It's a toss-up which is more dangerous: Howl courting some girl, or Howl bored. Howl, while courting someone, is distracted to the point of disaster; Howl bored is actively courting disaster. It's a fine point but an important one.

It's not that Calcifer objects to a little disaster, but it's nice to know what you're getting into.

"I had an idea today, Calcifer," Howl says, returning from a day out in the city.

Calcifer blazes up from where he'd been dozing in the grate. "Preserve me," he says, more out of obligation than actual feeling. Then, because he's been a bit bored lately--it's a hazard when Howl is courting and leaves him alone most of the day, and Calcifer is left mostly at loose ends during the day--he says, "What is it?"

"I think I need something a bit more flashy," Howl says. "It's all about reputation, you know, being a wizard."

"I think it's at least partly about magic," Calcifer objects, "or you could give me a day off once in a while."

Howl waves his hand impatiently. "All right, it's three-quarters about reputation. Maybe half. That's not the point. The point is it's _important_ , and I feel that my reputation is not quite what I'd like."

"You mean the part where you're best known for wearing extremely fancy clothes and mooning after girls?" Calcifer asks.

Another hand-wave. "I don't mind that part. But I think I need to add something a bit more impressive to it."

Calcifer gives him a wary look. Howl's idea of impressive generally means a lot of work for Calcifer. "What kind of impressive?"

"Here," Howl says, getting a piece of chalk. He kneels and begins sketching quickly on the hearthstones.

It rapidly becomes clear that the sketching is not a magical design but a blueprint of sorts, for a building. Calcifer is about to say that he isn't an architect... and then Howl sketches in a few notes, a line or two that somehow manage to indicate a connection between the real and the unreal and the in-between, and Calcifer can feel himself getting interested despite himself.

He doesn't notice how interested until he feels his hair singeing the rafters, he's risen up so high. He hurriedly lowers himself. It's not that he minds burning things, but there are few things less tasty than scorched cobwebs.

"Four doors," Calicifer says. "One here, one in Kingsbury, one roaming--that will be the tricky one, but I think I can do it as long as we have an anchor illusion and as long as I don't have to move too quickly. I don't see where the fourth will go."

"The fourth will be the tricky one, actually," Howl says. "But I can open it and set the anchor and then you'll simply have to maintain it."

"Where will it go?"

"That's mine to know, for now."

Cacifer crackles thoughtfully. "And there's the castle illusion, of course--all five senses, I assume? And protection against magical detection?"

"Wouldn't be very convincing otherwise. I suspect you can fudge some of the top bits, though, I can't see how anyone would be able to climb it to check out the crenellations. Can you do it?"

Calcifer subdues further, thinking. "I'm not sure how I feel about not knowing where the fourth door goes. Especially if I'm maintaining it. Could be dangerous, depending on what could come through it."

"I'm far too good a wizard to allow anything through I don't mean," Howl says, with his usual lack of modesty. "Besides which, where I'm thinking of anchoring it, there shouldn't be anything to come through besides rain and possibly the occasional stray cat." Calcifer files that away in his memory. "So, what do you think?"

Calcifer smolders thoughtfully. "You really aren't going to budge on telling me about that fourth door?"

"No, not now."

Calcifer seizes on this. "Possibly later?"

Howl smiles that smile that he clearly thinks makes him look enigmatic, and that in fact simply makes him look insufferably smug. Nonetheless, Calcifer feels a surge of fondness--this is exactly the kind of project that can really keep him interested, even if Howl does go off after another girl soon. It's then that he knows that he'll do it regardless of the answer. But he's not so silly as to _say_ so. Finally, Howl says, "Possibly. Yes. Perhaps, I'll say that much."

"All right," Calcifer says. "Then... yes."

"Marvelous," Howl says, and smiles--really smiles, not his smug smile or his not-paying-attention smile but the real dazzling smile that reminds Calcifer of a boy he met on a field once, before he was what he is now. He swipes a hand over the diagram to blot it out--they'll need all that room for the magical diagrams--and then claps his chalky hands together. (You can always tell when Howl is really interested in something by when he doesn't mind about things like chalky hands.) "Let's begin."

* * *

**The Apprentice**

The boy is dripping rather, and huddling close enough to the fire that Calcifer has to recede to keep from getting rain all over him. Nonetheless, he's fascinated, because the boy is the first one who seems fascinated with _him_ \--the first one since Howl, that is.

Everyone else who he has encountered so far has reacted to Calcifer in one of two ways.

A surprising number don't notice that he's even there, or rather don't notice that he's anything but an ordinary fire in an ordinary hearth. Not even if he rises up big and pulls faces at them, which he does occasionally when he's bored. (He can do quite good faces, too, not being constrained by actual anatomy.) He's not sure why, but he suspects that most people have very fixed ways of thinking, and since they expect what is in a fireplace to be a fire, that's what they see.

The rest are afraid of him, a fear that ranges from wary discomfort to absolute terror. More than once he has had to subside, grumbling, to the grate to prevent some soul from having conniptions.

The boy is just watching him, lying on the floor with his chin in his hands, clearly fascinated. "So you're a fire who's a person too?"

"I'm hardly a _person_ ," Calcifer says, a little offended despite being flattered by the rapt attention. "I'm a fire demon." (This is as close an identification as he is able to make of his nature. He cannot be a star anymore, as stars are by definition in the sky. He was once celestial fire; now he is fire still but not celestial. 'Fire demon' is good enough as a description.)

"It must be very interesting, being a fire demon."

"I haven't any other frame of reference," Calcifer says, but then pride forces him to add, "but yes, I imagine it's much more interesting than being most kinds of things. Although it would be more interesting still if Howl didn't go off and leave me without company for so long."

"I could stay and keep you company," the boy says, a little shyly.

"You just want in out of the rain," Calcifer points out, by habit. But then he relents. Company would be nice if Howl is going to keep going off like this. "But yes, I wouldn't mind a bit of company."

"Good," the boy says. "My name's Michael."

"Calcifer," Calcifer says.

It's a while later when Howl actually brings the matter up with Calcifer. "You like the boy?" he asks, once Michael has gone to sleep."

"He's not afraid of me," Calcifer says, and thinks a little. "He's good company."

"Then he'll stay, I suppose," Howl says lightly, and Calcifer blazes with agreement.

* * *

**The Witch**

"I wouldn't," Calcifer says. He's flickering, which he knows is a sign of worry, and he can't seem to help it.

"I'm afraid I didn't ask what you thought," Howl says with. He's smartening up his newest suit, the one with the gold embroidery. His tone has the glassy, slippery calmness that means he will be at his most implacable.

"It's not a good idea," Calcifer says.

"I'm sorry, I thought I said I didn't ask." Howl brushes imaginary dust off his sleeve.

"Howl--"

"Would you like to tell me why I shouldn't pursue an assignation with one of the other most powerful wiches in the kingdom? One who is beautiful to boot? Because I am afraid I don't see any reason to change my plans if you won't."

Calcifer sinks lower into the grate. _She has a fire demon,_ he thinks, _and I think it's more than half got control of her, and will be going for you next._ But he can't say that. He _can't,_ it's not that he doesn't want to but that he's incapable of it: the allegiances between stars, sung together into unbreakable being, go back millennia. And even if they are no longer stars, those are not agreements he can break; they are built too deeply into his nature. It is as impossible for him as it would be for water to burn. "It won't end well for you."

Howl gives him his coolest stare. "I told you once," he says, "I don't like arguing."

He goes out into a whirl of icy air. Calcifer sinks into the grate and smokes to himself, and wishes contracts were not so binding--in all directions.

* * *

**The Return**

"I didn't expect you to come back," Howl says. His voice is light, but also penetrating.

His eyes are no longer stone-glassy, Calcifer realizes. There's life behind them now, or more precisely, heart. "Well," he says. "I don't know how you'd manage without me."

"I'd manage well enough," Howl says. "But being rather lazy, I'd prefer not to."

"Typical," Calcifer says, but he's dancing in the grate despite himself. He feels so light without a heart weighing him down. Hearts are good for humans, it seems, and bad for fire demons. "Sophie's going to have her hands full."

"So you'll stay, then?"

"I'd be bored otherwise," Calcifer says. "And I'd like to see how things turn out. But you're going to have to get a proper stove, I'm not letting you cook on me three times a day anymore."

Howl's smile widens. "It's a deal," he says.


End file.
